


Brother's Keeper

by Bhelryss



Series: AU: Zombies [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Duessel (Fire Emblem) - Freeform, Gen, Natasha (Fire Emblem) - Freeform, disturbing things, some canon-typical violence in word form, the major character death happens offscreen but it's a very present thing, warning for monica-esque horrors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-16 23:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11839650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: Glen is alive. (Glen is dead.) Glen is ill, Glen is injured. Glen is anything but dead. (Glen is anything but alive.)Cormag will save him. Cormag will keep him safe.AU: Glen is a horror like Monica was, and follows behind Cormag as he fights in the war





	1. Chapter 1

“You, Sunstone, and you, Moonstone, will go to the Princess Renais, and end her.” Lyon says in his father’s place, Emperor Vigarde’s gaze unfocused and to the side, as though his generals are but far away flies, still on the wall and not worth noticing. “Her threat to the empire is too great to ignore.” And he says other things, but Glen does not listen, not really, staring as he is at Vigarde and willing the Emperor to speak for himself.

To end this nightmare, and speak up. 

The Emperor does not, and the Sunstone is dismissed, and the Moonstone drawn closer to speak with Prince Lyon without his assigned partner.

They fly at dawn, Valter offhand mentioning rendezvousing with a holy man, and that is the last that is seen of Sunstone for some time. 

Cormag sees Fenarin, sees the Moonstone and his vicious mount returning, and goes to greet his brother. Glen is not there, and Valter spins an easy tale of deceit, and treachery, and the guiles of a woman who knows no mercy. It smells like a lie, every inch of it, because Glen is not stupid, why would he trust an enemy enough to let her close so she might kill him? But it must be true, because Glen is gone.

The Sunstone is dead, and the body could not even be recovered. A shame, how terrible. And Valter laughed, though he tried to make it sound sympathetic. Gallows humor, maybe, a surviving general to a surviving brother. Poorly timed, to Cormag’s reeling heart. Cruelly delivered, to his despairing shock.

He flies for vengeance, he flies for justice (he knows this is not justice). Cormag and Genarog rest by a river, near where Valter had described the ambush. Fenarin followed behind, a defeated shell of a dragon that blinked too slowly and refused food. A family of mourners, setting out for closure, for vengeance. 

They close on the site, and they see someone, in the grass. Standing there, swaying with the wind. They land. Fenarin shows liveliness for the first time in ages. Making a hybrid rumble and chirp that Cormag recognizes as meaning Glen, a questioning noise. Dismounting, he moves closer, and when the person turns, Cormag chokes back a sob.

It’s Glen, Glen with his vacant eyes, and blood crusted at the corner of his mouth. He’s hurt, he might be ill, the Sunstone barely recognizes his brother. “Cormag….” Is the croaked words that Glen utters, shuffling forward like he can barely move. (Behind him, Fenarin roars with a deep emotion that even Cormag can’t understand as the wind turns, Glen’s jerky movements towards Cormag aided by a brisk wind. Genarog takes to the air after Fenarin, obviously startled, and then it’s just them in the field. Just these two boys.)

“Glen?” Cormag answers, swiping at the treacherous tears on his face. Glen’s alive? Oh, Latona bless it. He runs forward, tackling Glen with a hug the likes of which neither had received in years, since Cormag grew up enough to join the draco knights. “Glen,” he says, tears openly falling.

“Cormag…”

That’s all Glen says, though Cormag stays attached to his brother for hours, knocking elbows and touching knees together, just to reassure himself that Glen is here, Glen is real. (Glen is cold. Glen looks through Cormag, not at him, something missing from that familiar gaze, and something in Cormag’s soul shivers.)

Fenarin doesn’t land again, that Cormag sees. It bothers him, that Fenarin hasn’t come back for Glen. (It bothers him, that Fenarin followed Valter home, instead of staying with Glen.) Genarog does though, far away from where Cormag is hovering around Glen’s unmoving shoulders. Crouches there, in the growing shadows, digging trenches into the dirt with his claws. Something is wrong, it is upsetting the wyvern, but Glen is cold.

Glen is cold, and when Cormag tries to light a fire, as night falls, Glen flinches away. Noiseless words of distress bubble darkly past lips that haven’t moved in hours, and they don’t subside or cease until the fire is out and Glen is yards away from any of the residual heat from the glowing (dimming) logs. 

They’re together though, is what Cormag tells himself, as he huddles around the ice block that Glen is, once night falls properly. It’s strange, because as a child Glen had always run hot. Perhaps he  _ is _ ill, is what Cormag tells himself. “You’re freezing,” Cormag complains, though he doesn’t try to light another fire. (The second one had produced a similar reaction, and Glen had shuffled away with urgency at the third. Cormag hadn’t tried for a fourth.)

Genarog sleeps in the field, away from the two men, the trenches he’d dug out of distress radiating out away from him.

The sun rises, and Fenarin is under Genarog’s wing, still far away from where the knights had camped out. Glen is standing away from the makeshift camp, watching the sun rise the way he had been when Cormag found him. Stiff from the cold, Cormag sniffs to clear his nose and shuffles over, still tired and off-put by some odd nightmares that had plagued him in the night.

“Glen? Glen?” He calls, over and over. Gently, in case he might startle Glen. The Sunstone does not turn, but Cormag catches what might be his name, over the whisper of the trees at the far end of their field as the wind kicks up. The sun is shining strongly, the wind is strengthening, and Glen is reacting again. A good sign, probably. Cormag shivers, still cold, and leave Glen to his thoughts.

The camp needs packing up, and Genarog needs checking on. Fenarin too, now that he’s thinking on it. It’s not right, that the two of them are acting so skittish. He’ll have stern words for them, after he puts together a warm breakfast. Now, he just needs....a fire. (A quick check to make sure Glen hasn’t wandered off, and he sets the fire and starts something easy and filling and tasteless. A draco knight field staple, because for all that it tastes like wood chips, even a spoiled noble could learn to cook it with ease.)

Scooping breakfast into one bowl, he only has his own (he hadn’t expected to have the miracle of Glen still being alive happen after all), he kills the fire again and announces breakfast as he returns to Glen’s side. Breakfast first, then breaking camp and chastising their wyverns.

After an awkward minute, holding cooling food in one hand and an unsettling feeling in the other, Cormag nudges Glen (still cold, sunlight clearly hasn’t warmed him up yet). “Hey, c’mon, Glen. It’s breakfast.” Nothing, though Glen stops staring at the clouds to turn an unfocused gaze on Cormag. “You always complained about me eating it all, back when we were kids. Remember?” Cormag cajoles.

Perhaps if he reminds Glen how much he stands to lose, by passing up breakfast, he will stop staring at Cormag with those empty, empty eyes. It does nothing, though Glen tilts his head and says, “...Cormag.” It’s empty, no judgement, but it should have been a rebuke, and Cormag reads it as such. (It’s not Glen’s fault he’s unwell.)

The bowl radiates warmth in his hand, a neutral smell coming from the food inside, and Cormag takes the time to coax Glen into holding it. Glen resists him, making wordless distress noises and trying to pull his hands away. There’s no strength in it, and Cormag desperately, desperately closes Glen’s fingers around the bowl. It’s stupid, he should stop, but he has to do this. Glen needs to hold this bowl. 

Holding Glends hands around the bowl, even as Glen weakly jerks backward, away from the warmth of the food, Cormag’s eyes tear up. “Glen, please.” He tries, but Glen doesn’t calm. Feeling helpless, he lets Glen go, and the bowl hits the ground, the food inside sloshing over Cormag’s boots. Glen retreats, complexion grey in the morning light, and Cormag lets him go.

Lets him go, and picks up the dishware feeling cold inside. He stands there, watching Glen sway with the wind, yards away, and lifts his shirt hem to scrub over his eyes. It’s okay, it’s fine. Glen is just ill. Glen is ill, and he’ll get better. The important thing is that they’re together now. They’re together, and Cormag will protect Glen while he’s healing. Things will be okay, because they’re back together.

He looks to the sky, where Genarog and Fenarin were circling above them scales standing out against the clear, cloudless blue, and then back to Glen, and he stiffens his resolve. They’ll find Princess Eirika, and he’ll make her help fix what she did to him. But first...clean up breakfast. Then break and clean up camp. Then they’ll head out.

(He dries his face, and thinks, stubbornly,  _ Damn rain _ .)


	2. Chapter 2

Eirika is not the cause of his brother’s condition, that much is made clear from the start. She doesn’t even recognize him, for one, but it is her horror at his condition that makes Cormag  _ truly _ believe it. And well, if Valter would lie...Cormag joins them, Genarog at his side and Glen trailing haltingly behind. (Fenarin is a shadow in the sky. He won’t land close to Glen and he won’t approach the gathered army without a rider, and Cormag is ready to tear his hair out, confused and frustrated and worried as he is.)

Fenarin won’t even be near Glen, and Genarog will only stand it from a small distance. They have had to walk, all this way to Eirika’s army, and they will have to walk behind them, when it turns out that Glen spooks the horses. Cormag could mount up and fly, over and ahead, but then who would look out for Glen? He already doesn’t like the looks people give his brother, and he won’t let them be separated. 

A well meaning monk tries to reason with him, on his way to soothe Genarog’s temper and tempt the wyvern into allowing pats with his own meat ration. “There’s something amiss with your brother,” Artur says kindly, and Cormag’s face and heart are stone. “If you would let me check him over once more-” 

“No.” Cormag snarls, because he’d seen that same monk snooping around Glen earlier, and he’d seen the gentle light of holy magic and heard Glen’s terrible, wordless cries before he’d gotten close enough to intervene. Some “check-up” that was, terrifying his brother. Glen was ill, Glen was injured. Artur was officially on Cormag’s shit list, and it wasn’t likely he would redeem himself. “Don’t come near my brother again.”

Still, just that incident isn’t enough to make him wary of leaving Glen alone. They have skirmishes, sometimes, with monsters. He’s on the field more often than not, Genarog’s wingspan letting them forge far ahead and return before they can be overwhelmed is very helpful. He returns to his tent, where Glen tends to gravitate to, when Cormag is gone, and Lute is there.

He doesn’t know her well, but he knows of her. 

“You’re the one with the dead brother.” She says, bluntly. “Can I study him? He’s different from the revenants in any of the books I’ve read.” Horrified, Cormag stares at her for just a moment, and then he’s brushing past her to the inside of his tent. Empty. He rushes back outside, and she’s still talking, comparing Glen’s lack of putrefaction to some odd mushroom he’s never heard of, and Cormag  _ cannot find Glen _ .

Without troubling himself further, he grabs her under her arms and lifts her up so their faces are even. “Where, is my brother.” He grits out, her calculating look pissing him off further. She doesn’t even say anything, just rolls her head to the side and stares. Cormag looks, and he drops Lute without any prompting, already heading to Glen’s side.

Glen, for his part, is stumbling out of the woods, already calling for Cormag. “...Cormag…” For a moment, Cormag feels like he’s the older brother, wrapping his arms around Glen and checking him through the whole body contact for injuries, for issues. He’s just cold, as he has been since they were reunited. Cold, and grey. Ill, is Cormag’s assumption, though with Glen’s extreme, new aversion to healing and holy magic, he’s sure it’ll pass over naturally. 

“You’re safe,” Cormag breathes, a sigh of relief. His shoulders shake, but the urge to sob into Glen’s hard shoulder passes within a moment. “You’re safe, oh, Demon King take it, Glen you scared me.” Lute scared him. “You can’t do that again, Glen. You’re not well, what if someone hurts you while I’m gone?” He can’t trust them, any of them, with the safety of his brother.  _ He’s _ a traitor, so they can’t trust him, and Glen isn’t even that. He’s still a loyal Grado soldier, just...pitiable and harmless. Cormag can’t trust any of them, not even the kindly Frelian princess, who tries to keep him company. 

No...Cormag can’t trust any of them. Not with Glen’s safety on the line. So the next time they make camp, Cormag keeps his tent back, away from the others. Not quite on the outskirts, but enough so that Genarog has his space, and it’s obvious when someone from the more dense clusters of sleeping spaces tries to approach him. 

This also has the double effect of keeping Glen from the fires. Even this long after his rescue, Glen cannot stand the heat of it, so Cormag’s nights a chilly. Lonely. Glen is there, but he’s quiet, mostly. Sometimes, he’ll murmur, like falling silk, “Cormag…” And each time Cormag will feel tears burning behind his eyes.

He’ll answer, “Yeah? Glen?” each time, every time that Glen speaks to him. And every time, Glen will fall silent again, or he’ll just repeat himself. And after, each time after, Cormag will grip the collar of his shirt and tug it up to wipe away any tears that threaten to fall. After a period of silence, or maybe right away, if he’s exhausted from the day, Cormag will push and prod Glen into lying down, tuck a heavy blanket around his shoulders (to help keep him warm...Glen is so cold, these days, and if he’s not weighed down he’ll get up and wander in wide circles all night, though Cormag tries not to think of how little Glen is sleeping, if he’s sleeping at all), and retire himself.

And in the morning, they’ll march, or fight, or whatever. Glen will shuffle behind, or ahead of Cormag, and the both of them will be at the back of the procession. Genarog flies above, Fenarin at his wing, and the two wyverns will call back and forth across the sky, playing chase with each other as Cormag herds Glen in the right directions. (Cormag still only sees Fenarin when he’s in the air, following them. He worries about the wyvern, but he worries more for Glen.)

Duessel joins them, when Ephraim does. Excited, Cormag grips Glen’s wrist gently, and tugs him to the Obsidian’s tent. “General!” Cormag calls, brightly, hoping to see some more life come back to Glen, hoping to feel less alone in the world. The color drains so fast from Duessel’s face, when he greets Cormag and turns his eyes to Glen, that he sways on his feet and looks like he might faint. “General,” Cormag says, ignoring the way his stomach is dropping, making him nauseous, “It’s good to see you. And um,”

He looks nervously to Glen, who stares at Duessel without recognition. “Glen’s happy to see you too. He’s hasn’t...he hasn’t been well, since Valter turned on him.”

Duessel swallows loudly, and licks his lower lip before speaking. “And, uh, and I am glad to see him, though I wish it were under better circumstances.” They are all silent, as Glen sways on his feet, all of his vibrancy and personality gone. The meeting goes poorly, and eventually Glen wanders off, murmuring to himself Cormag’s name, over and over. 

The Obsidian tries to be gentle. “Cormag, there’s something wrong with Glen, surely you can see that.” Lays a large, wrinkled hand on Cormag’s shoulder. One traitor to another, general to soldier, Glen’s mentor to Glen’s little brother. “Tell me you see it, Cormag.” 

“He’s ill, that’s all.” Cormag refutes, hotly. Feeling betrayed. “He’s just ill, why can’t any of you see that, he just needs help! He just needs time, and then he’ll be back to himself. He knows me, he’s not - he  _ is _ going to get better! I thought you, of all people, would understand.” And then Cormag shoves away the hand on his shoulder and jogs after Glen.

Glen, who turns at the noise of Cormag’s booted heels striking the hard, dry ground, and says, voice rough at the edges, “...Cormag.” 

Cormag sniffles, wipes away hot, angry tears with the heel of his hand, and smiles. For Glen. Smiles and knocks elbows with his brother. “Yeah, yeah, it’s me. Glen, it’s me. Don’t worry about General Duessel, he’ll come around.” Maybe. “Do you think you want to try eating dinner today, Glen?” Cormag coaxes, guiding Glen away from the woods and back towards their isolated tent. He spares a look back for Duessel, an angry, despairing look. 

And then he turns back to Glen, and tries one more time to draw Glen out of his shell. All he gets is a quiet, “...Cormag…” But it’s fine for now. Because he will get better. Glen has to get better. He has to. Closing his eyes for a moment against a wave of fear that Glen won’t get better (because he hasn’t improved yet), Cormag opens his eyes to the grey complexion of his brother, head tilted down to look his shorter, younger brother in th eye. “Cormag…”

“I’m fine,” Cormag assures him, though his heart still hurts. “I’m fine, stop your mother henning, Glen, Saint Latona herself wouldn’t hover so.” Glen’s gaze slides away from Cormag, empty as ever, and Cormag’s eyes prickle. “Let’s...let’s just get you some dinner, okay?” 

Cormag beds down that night sure in the knowledge that Glen is weighed down with two heavy blankets, and he’s between his older brother and the tent flap anyway. So Glen can’t make a getaway and nothing should be able to slip past him to get to Glen. He falls asleep watching Glen’s shoulders, they’re still, almost as though Glen’s not breathing. It’s just the light, but still, he counts the seconds, as though any moment Glen will exhale. (Cormag falls asleep on number 230.)

He wakes up when air is moving that shouldn’t. He throws out a hand to Glen, to be reassured through touch that he’s still there (the gloom is too dark and his eyes are still half closed), but all he feels are disturbed blankets under his fingers. Panicked, he sits upright, suddenly fully awake. The tent flap is open, letting in a breeze, Cormag trips over his boots and scrambles outside, fingers digging into the dirt as he tries to right himself without slowing down.

“GLEN!” He screams, turning this way and that, looking for shadows that don’t belong, looking for something, anything. He’d pray, but his heart is racing too fast and his thoughts are gone, scattered by the idea that Glen is gone, he’d lost Glen. He knew he couldn’t trust these people, and he’d slept, and now Glen was gone, they were going to hurt him-

“Glen!!” He tries again, feeling frozen all the way to his toes, no doubt waking some in the main encampment. No doubt drawing the attention of the sentries. Let them be inconvenienced, he didn’t care. Breaths coming faster, Cormag stumbles off in a direction at random. Nothing, nothing. He careens off into a different direction, pokey things on the ground tearing at his feet, and branches scratching at his face and arms. 

He slows, and eventually he stops. And he turns his face to the sky, stars barely visible through the leafy treetops, and sobs. Stumbling onwards, hopefully back towards camp, he cares little for the thorns he steps on or the stinging scratches on his face. He stops at a large tree, and leans on it. Cormag thinks he should be wailing. Forget his masculinity, forget his pride, he’d already cried over his brother, for his brother. The numbness in his heart confused him. 

“...Cormag. Cormag. Cormag...” Sounds like it’s coming from just around the corner. Cormag heaves back onto his feet properly, and drifts closer. “Cormag, Cormag! Cormag!” Distress, Glen was in distress. Cormag sped up, heart quickening again.

“Shush, Glen, I’m sorry. Oh, I’m so sorry,” is Duessel’s quiet voice. It halts Cormag cold, spreading ice through his veins. “Oh, you deserved better than this, you and your brother. Don’t worry, Glen, I will right this evil that has happened to you. Shush, Sunstone. Your duties are ended, shh.” 

“Glen!” Cormag screams, parting the last bit of underbrush in such a rush he bounces off Duessel’s side when he fails to stop in time. Duessel has a sword, and Glen is kneeling in the dirt, head limply lying on his own shoulder, keening Cormag’s name with increasing quiet. “Don’t touch him.” Cormag says, fierce as he squirms in between the two generals. A breathing, living shield. “You don’t get to touch him.”

Cormag, as he shepherds Glen home, Duessel safely ahead of them where Cormag can keep an eye on him, vows to sleep less, in the coming nights. He cannot afford to let down his guard again. Especially not with the reclaiming of Castle Renais looming on the horizon, and his allies about to feel much more secure in their own position. They might decide they don’t need two already traitors and an ill man, in their midst. They could make do with just the Obsidian, after all.

Castle Renais looms on the horizon, Cormag and Glen at the end of the army, marching towards it. Alone, but together at least. Cormag’s eyes are red with exhaustion, and Genarog and Fenarin refuse to land so long as Glen is nearby. And eventually, Princess Eirika or Prince Ephraim will demand he stop shirking his vow to serve, and begin fighting again. 

Begin fighting, and leave Glen alone, to everyone else’s so-called mercies. 

His hands tremble when he’s not holding them deliberately steady, but so far, Glen is still alive. That’s enough for Cormag, for now.


	3. Chapter 3

They kill a traitor’s wife, in the castle. Cormag hears Kyle talking about it, to his companion Forde, how Ephraim had been the one to do it. How it had messed him up, how the Ephraim had spoken to him at length about the whole experience. And then he saw Kyle look at him, and their open conversation drops to a hush. 

Cormag doesn’t think he’s paranoid, but...what exactly is he supposed to think? He’s a traitor, none of these people have any love for him or Glen, not even Duessel. Maybe especially Duessel. (And it hurts him to think that. Someone who knew them both, when things were better...They’re alone, for real. Glen and Cormag against literally the entire world.)

He can’t help but think Glen is next. They’d kill a traitor’s wife, an innocent in all this, just because she was ill like Glen? A proper Renais citizen, murdered. For vengeance? Retaliation?? Framed as some sort of...mercy kill. Isn’t it awful? Isn’t it horrible? How can he leave Glen alone, even for a second? 

It isn’t fair. It’s so, horribly, crushingly unfair. Cormag does as he asks. He leaves Glen for hours, minutes, shorter moments and longer ones, to go out and fight when he’s asked. He does his chore rotations, he keeps Genarog and Fenarin from eating the knights’ horses when there isn’t any other game for miles. He does as he’s asked and all he wants in return is to take care of his brother.

It’s Glen, it’s just Glen. Glen who isn’t hurting anyone, who only ever calls for his brother. Glen couldn’t hurt anyone, with how ill he is. He never eats if people are watching, even Cormag, and it’s not like he’s bothering anyone. He’s just...he’s sick. It’s sad, but it’s not evil, it’s not a crime. It’s not something he should be  _ murdered _ over. Hadn’t Valter already done enough, to Glen? Hadn’t attempted murder already been enough??

Cormag pulls even further away from the rest of the army, and takes Glen with him. There is now a small sea of empty space between Cormag’s and the rest of the army’s tents. He eats alone at mealtimes, Glen beside him, refusing to eat no matter how Cormag tries to tempt him. They’re together, which is what their mother asked, when Cormag followed Glen into the draco knights. They’re together, which has to mean something. 

It has to balance something out, right? It can’t just be Cormag suffering as his brother remains as ill has he has been, since Cormag found him in that field in the mountains, forever. Right? He looks to Glen, who turns back, and parrots, “Cormag.” With all the emotion and weight of an empty, dusty bowl. Cormag smiles wanly, and looks away, unable to keep eye contact when Glen looks at him empty of any and all expectations.

Slowly, so slowly, he lowers his head so it hangs. He’s exhausted. He’s tired. Cormag hasn’t been sleeping, fearful for Glen’s safety, and it’s wearing on him, both the lack of sleep and taking care of Glen. He’s tired and no one will help him. Not the way he wants to be helped. He leans on Glen, who barely supports him before leaning with the force of Cormag’s weight, and then straightens back up. 

He’s...tired.

(It’s worse, in the forests of Rausten. They’re closing on the end of the campaign, all the soldiers can feel it. Cormag’s focus is completely shot with his exhaustion, but he’s still on the field of battle, Genarog keeping them both alive while Cormag fights things only he can see alongside the actual enemy combatants. The commander, a man in dirty, darkly colored priests’ robes laughs in Cormag’s face.

“Tell me,” Riev breathes, Cormag’s lance point dug deep into his gut, sheerly by luck the one to kill him. “Is your brother himself?” And he laughs, and he laughs. “Or,” Riev gasps, still speared through and dying all the slower for it, “Is he ever so much more biddable, now that he is dead? Now that the Demon King’s magic keeps him alive for you?” And then Riev howls, as Cormag rips his weapon free.

And then he dies.

Yes...it’s definitely worst, in the forests of Rausten.)

The closer they get to the Demon King’s temple, the heavier and uglier the sense of wrongness gets. Glen never acts as if he can feel the difference in the pressures, still calls for Cormag and still wanders behind or in front of his younger brother. 

Cormag’s nightmares are full of Riev’s laughter, and when he wakes up the nightmare hasn’t ended. Glen’s complexion is still grey and his skin is still frigid and Cormag wonders if maybe everyone he distrusted wasn’t right.

He wonders if maybe there isn’t something terribly, horribly wrong with Glen, that he simply cannot heal from. Still, with the sun up, and the gloom of the deep woods just a little less oppressive, he puts it aside. He cannot think such things. Cormag cannot believe that they are right, that Glen won’t come back to himself with just a little more time.

The temple is huge, and old. He leaves Glen in the woods, hidden away from the army while he fights, though Cormag’s hands won’t stop shaking. Every time he blinks it feels like he’s missed seconds. He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be fighting, he’s in very poor condition. (Cormag hasn’t let anyone close enough to notice that he’s barely on his feet.) He should be with Glen. (Glen is safe, hidden inside a hollow tree and weighed down with all the blankets Cormag could scrounge together. Fenarin, a passing thought, hasn’t been sighted for days.)

Lyon dies, Ephraim’s lance through his chest, coughing out his life and speaking words for the prince only to hear. The Demon King rises, and the pressure of his evil causes exhausted, stressed Cormag to black out, for a few moments. A minute or two later and he’s conscious again, dizzy and unbalanced but still seated in his saddle. 

He does not escape the final battle unscathed, and it is only through Genarog’s power that he leaves the temple without being on a stretcher. His side is bleeding heavily, his head spins, and Cormag wonders if he’ll die before he can go get Glen from out of that tree. With that in his mind, he looks up into the face of the Grado healer woman, and begs her to tell him if he’s dying.

Natasha does not squirm under the panicked grip on her arms, painful in its unintended strength. She pushes him down with such ease, that he’s certain he’s dying, and not just weak from blood loss. “You aren’t dying,” She says soothingly. “You’ll need to take things easy, Sir Cormag, for certain, but you are not dying.” And then she sticks him with a freezing stare, and works on closing up the wound in his side all while panics and slips in and out of consciousness due to sheer exhaustion.

He wakes up with a healer’s headache, and a mouth full of cotton. Natasha smiles at him, gives him a quick check, and declares him healthy enough. “You need a lot of sleep still,” She lectures, concern in her eyes, “But you’ve no need to spend your day here in the medic tent.” Cormag gains his feet, sways, and heads for the exit. 

“Do not tear your stitches!” Natasha warns, and then Cormag blinks in the sunlight, free of the smell of healing magic and blood and unwashed bodies. He stares, turns in a circle, and then remembers. Glen...Cormag tries to take off at a jog, but the enormous pain that causes him slows Cormag down to a walk. Don’t tear his stitches, right.

Right. 

Genarog and Fenarin are there, in a slightly more open area, nappin in the sunlight. Cormag is glad they’re both okay, that Fenarin is still here, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t detour. His brother needs him. The walk into the woods to where Glen had been hidden is not nearly as awful and gloomy as before. 

It is like, with the Demon King’s sealing, light has returned to the deep parts of Rausten’s Darkling Woods. He hears birds, and bugs. Life returned too. It makes Cormag feel less guilty for leaving Glen in that hollow tree over the night while he was in the healer’s tent. Because there are bird calls, and insect noises, and the shadows that clung to everything have lightened. 

For the first time in a long time, Cormag feels hopeful. And maybe that’s just the sleep talking, but it’s true. So it’s with a light heart that Cormag approaches Glen’s tree. And it’s with a light heart that he squeezes himself inside, right alongside Glen.

Who...doesn’t react. 

Cormag jostles Glen a little, thinking he’s finally caught Glen sleeping, and begins pulling away the blankets tucked around the Sunstone’s cold body. “Wake up, sleepy bones.” Cormag says, uneasiness creeping up on him once again. All the blankets are pulled away, and it is a gentle, but ultimately empty Cormag that carries Glen out of the tree and into the dappled sunshine. 

Glen is stiff, in a way he hasn’t ever been. His complexion is still grey, still lifeless, but he doesn’t stare at Cormag with empty eyes and say, as though exhaling, “...Cormag.” Instead, Glen’s eyes are half-lidded, permanently between closed and open, and he looks at nothing. Cormag lays his brother down in a sunny patch, and falls to his knees a few feet away, and dry heaves until his side screams as he strains the stitches there.

The sun is setting when Duessel comes for him. Cormag has sat, unmoving by Glen’s side for hours, and is sure he has no tears left in him. The Obsidian kneels, one large, wrinkled hand drawing Cormag to him, and for a long moment just holds the younger brother of the Sunstone. And Cormag’s shoulders shake, and his eyes burn, but he has no more energy for tears, and so he just shakes, while Duessel holds him. 

“You tried to tell me,” Cormag chokes out, hands fisting and unclenching uselessly at his sides. “You tried, you tried to tell me.” But it had just been too horrible. Too much. The whole world had tried to tell him, but Cormag had spat at its truths, and held the lie to his heart for comfort. “You tried-” Cormag sobs.

Duessel closes his eyes against the sight of Glen, dead and finally still after all these weeks, against the sight of a young man shaking apart in his arms. He cannot close his ears to Cormag’s distress, or the way the woods around them are full of sounds. The evil that lived within the woods is sealed, dead and sleeping once more. The evil that kept Glen from peace is gone.

But things are not peaceful. The evil that has been done to the living is not dead and sleeping. Duessel holds Cormag tighter, as the knight shakes apart within the Obsidian’s steady grip before sliding into a much needed, but deeply troubled sleep.The evil that has been done to Cormag will live forever in his memories, in his nightmares. In the way anyone might say his name on a day when all he can hear is that one word falling from Glen’s lips like falling silk.

Grim faced, Duessel waits until he’s sure that Cormag won’t wake when he moves, and then he carries the young man back to camp and back to a bed somewhere warm, near people. And in the morning, when Cormag is too grey-faced and static-souled to think of it, Duessel ensures that Glen has a proper burial, as he should have had from the start. 

And in Cormag’s nightmares, his brother stares at him with empty eyes, while Riev laughs in his ear, and says only, “...Cormag…”


End file.
